NEWTON, MA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/30/14 -- Empiriko, a clinical intelligence company, and CreaGen Biosciences, Inc. ("CreaGen"), a drug discovery service company and science research incubator, today announced a partnership agreement under which CreaGen will provide chemistry expertise and modern laboratory facilities for standardizing and scaling Empiriko's chemosynthetic liver technology (Biomimiks™). By capitalizing on CreaGen's chemistry expertise and state-of-the-art laboratory facility, Empiriko is validating methodologies for its transformative Biomimiks™ technology. Now pharmaceutical customers, for the first time, can use a chemistry-based system to rapidly and accurately predict and confirm metabolism patterns, pathways and profiles for small molecule therapeutics. Today's announcement comes just a week after Empiriko's official launch: Empiriko Brings Game-changing Technology to Drug Discovery and Clinical Research Industry.

"We are thrilled to be working with CreaGen, especially given their extensive experience in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery," said Mukund Chorghade, Empiriko's Chief Scientific Officer. "This partnership enables us to share brainpower, while tapping into CreaGen's expansive facilities for parallel chemistry, spectroscopy and chromatography."

"We are excited to be partnering with the Empiriko team and to have this special opportunity to support their Biomimiks™ technology. We are confident that this chemistry-based technology has the potential for changing the way pharmaceutical companies predict, confirm and quantify the accurate formation of drug metabolites and their likely clinical impact," said Raj Rajur, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of CreaGen Biosciences. "This partnership enables us to play a strategic role in taking this technology to the next level of commercialization."

The pharmaceutical industry continues to face tremendous financial and competitive pressures to discover and select promising drug candidates more quickly and cost-effectively. Metabolism profiling, which is conducted relatively late in the drug discovery process, is a widely-used means of identifying potential toxicity and drug-drug interactions, and selecting the best drug candidates for further study. Since 90% of drug metabolites are implicated in adverse drug reactions, metabolic processes of drugs are the subject of intense scrutiny in drug development. Current approaches for evaluating drug metabolism are labor-intensive and costly processes which involve animal testing and often produce results that are chemically inconclusive.

About CreaGen BiosciencesCreaGen Biosciences is a specialty drug discovery chemistry service company that provides high quality research support to biotech and pharmaceutical companies. The company's discovery research service engine, Integrated Chemistry Operating System (ICOS™), helps transform research ideas into innovative medicines, serving as a de facto medicinal chemistry facility for moving concepts to the clinic. CreaGen's scientists are highly skilled with extensive experience in a broad range of therapeutic areas, offering partners an opportunity to expand their core business on a fast track while significantly reducing overhead costs. In addition, CreaGen's Chemistry Incubator Division offers innovators a collaborative place to launch, incubate and grow their emerging life science companies. Recognized as the preferred contract research organization to top pharmaceutical and emerging companies and the only regional incubator dedicated to chemistry, CreaGen offers a unique and flexible chemistry experience that is enjoyed by more than 50 companies worldwide and a number of emerging biotechs. For more information, visit www.creagenbio.com.

About EmpirikoEmpiriko is a clinical intelligence company that leverages chemistry-based experimental research and in silicomodeling to provide solutions in drug discovery, development and patient outcomes by combining scientific research and clinical observations with leading-edge technologies and advanced analytics. To achieve a higher level of predictive power, Empiriko has designed in vitro and ex vivo biomimetic systems -- Biomimiks™ -- that function as "chemosynthetic livers" to generate and predict metabolic profiles of drugs, which identify New Chemical Entities (NCEs) and reduce drug attrition rates. Empiriko's Biomimiks™ technology offers a significant advancement in rational drug development and lays the predictive foundation for emulating CYP enzymes, function, mechanism and reactivity. With Biomimiks™ pharmaceutical researchers can now apply a new level of proactive intelligence -- aimed at developing better and safer compounds by conducting early metabolism studies, generating quantitative measures of toxicity and reducing the necessity of animal experimentation. For personalized patient treatment, clinicians can now analyze metabolic patterns to assess drug-to-drug interactions and the safety and efficacy associated with adding a new drug to a patient's drug regimen. For more information, visit http://www.empiriko.com.

Biomimiks™ is a trademark of Empiriko Corporation. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.